


The Terrible Secret of Godric's Hollow

by AnnieforSimonsflower



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Drama, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Hogwarts, Second War with Voldemort, The Quidditch Pitch: Leaving Feast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-31
Updated: 2007-10-31
Packaged: 2018-10-27 19:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieforSimonsflower/pseuds/AnnieforSimonsflower
Summary: After barely escaping Voldemort’s trap with their lives, Hermione must care for Harry.





	The Terrible Secret of Godric's Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> This story is archived on behalf of Simons_flower, who passed away in 2009, by her designated archivist.

  
Author's notes:

   

* * *

** The Terrible Secret of Godric's Hollow **

They dove out the window, Hermione casting " _Confringo_!" as they leapt. Glass from exploding mirrors and heat from the spell had injured both of them, so Hermione later counted herself lucky that when Harry dragged her out the window, she had the presence of mind to Apparate them both back to their camp while in midair. If they'd landed outside Bathilda Bagshot's house, she wasn't sure what might have happened.

The saving grace of it being winter was the snow that cushioned their landing outside their tent. The impact still knocked the breath from her, leaving her gasping on her back like a landed fish.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed once she could breathe again. The stars hadn't seemed to have moved much, so she didn't think more than fifteen or thirty minutes had gone by. She rolled to her side, groaning in pain from head to toe.

Then she saw Harry. He'd landed next to her on his stomach. Though he was exceptionally pale, she knew he wasn't dead because he blew snow away from his face with every breath.

"Harry?" she called. When he didn't respond, she called his name again, more loudly this time. Still unresponsive.

She climbed to her knees and crawled across the short distance separating them. Shaking his shoulder, she all but shouted his name in his ear, but he only flinched.

Straightening, she searched the area for her wand. Only then did she see the pink snow darkening to red underneath Harry.

She struggled to turn him on his back, pushing and shoving until he rolled over. Only once he was on his back did she remember she could have used her wand. Then she took a good look at him and gasped.

Sometime since their escape, his Polyjuice had worn off, allowing her to see that his scar had bled, covering most of his face in blood, though it was only weeping sullenly now. His right arm had been bitten by Nagini, the wound bleeding freely despite the snow and cold.

Guilt wracked her. She should have stopped Harry from entering Bathilda's house, should have realized something was terribly wrong when that woman could sense them under the Cloak and appear to see through their Polyjuice as well.

"Stupid," she chastised herself even as she moaned with the wearing off of her Polyjuice.

Harry groaned and twitched violently, causing Hermione to start and flail, hitting her hand on a tree branch and dislodging snow. She trembled in fear as he continued to shift and twitch. Harry's movements reminded her of Ron's descriptions of Harry's Voldemort-induced nightmares.

She realized then that she had to take control of the situation rather than continue to flail helplessly. After retrieving her wand, she found the pieces of Harry's, mourning briefly as she cradled the holly and phoenix feather shaft. Casting Levicorpus on Harry, she guided him into the tent. The snakebite was no longer bleeding so freely, so she merely wrapped a blanket tightly around it, tying it in place with a spell.

They'd been employing charms to make themselves invisible to any passers-by, but signs of human disturbance were apparent in the clearing outside the tent. She cast a monitoring charm on Harry to alert her if he grew worse, then exited the tent to clean up after the two of them. The blood-soaked snow stood out like a beacon screaming, "We are here!" Because she didn't know of a spell to whitewash snow, she Banished it, baring the frozen earth. A small whirlwind redistributed snow from around the clearing, covering the newly-exposed ground. She dropped snow from several branches so the one she'd knocked clear earlier didn't stand out.

Once that was complete and she was reasonably sure they were hidden again, she reentered the tent.

Harry was thrashing again, mumbling things she couldn't quite make out.

Kneeling beside him, she peeled away the layers of his clothes. There was so much blood that she couldn't be sure it was only from his arm and scar. His clothing had become stiff from dried blood, but after several minutes he was bare to the waist. She took little comfort in knowing the snakebite on his arm was his most serious injury.

"At least it's responding to treatment," she said to herself, thinking of when Nagini had bitten Mr. Weasley. He'd nearly bled out because the wound refused to heal with magic. Only an "experimental" Muggle treatment of using stitches had saved him. Hermione studied Harry's bite. She didn't think Harry's injury warranted stitches as it was only two clean puncture marks, not a gaping wound like Mr. Weasley's had been.

Transfiguring Harry's ruined shirt into a sponge after Scourgifying it, she damped it with snow. He flinched repeatedly as she cleaned his face and torso. He nearly hit her when she cleaned his forearm. She was sweaty, tired and uncomfortable, but only half-done.

The locket lay malevolently against the too-pale skin of his chest. She'd avoided it until then but now had no choice but to try to remove it.

It seemed to pulse as she wrapped her hand around it. During the times she'd worn it, she'd sensed the sentience in the thing but it hadn't disturbed her then as it did now. It refused to be removed from around Harry's neck. She could lift it, exposing the burned skin below, but no matter how hard she tugged and pulled, she couldn't lift it more than six inches from his chest.

She startled, dropping the locket, when Harry hissed in a voice quite unlike his own, "Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside now."

His scar began bleeding again.

There was a part of her that wanted to panic, wanted to run away, leaving Harry and Ron, wherever he might be, to their fates. She squashed that urge violently. She'd vowed to stand by Harry through everything and refused to allow something like barely escaping Voldemort with her life to dissuade her.

A semi-hysterical laugh escaped her.

She was on the edge of panic. Realizing that, she lay down the sponge, rose, and stepped outside for a moment. The cold slapped her in the face, helping to calm her down. Looking up, she smiled faintly at the stars glittering in the ink-dark sky. She could do this. She _would_ do this.

Refreshed, she reentered the tent.

Harry was thrashing more violently now, his scar bleeding at a steady rate. From his fevered murmuring, he was clearly reliving that last Halloween at Godric's Hollow.

The situation would not defeat her, she vowed.

She attempted to remove the locket one more time, only to have it burn coldly in her hand. Annoyed, she used a Severing Charm to cut the chain. It slithered off to pool beside his neck, mocking her. Grabbing it, she hung it on the hook by the tent flat. It swung slightly, almost vibrating, and she had the disturbing feeling it was watching her.

"No! Not Harry!" Harry shouted, making her start in surprise once again.

He was still in the throes of Voldemort's mental grip, leaving her without a way to help him.

Though the snakebite was no longer bleeding, it appeared ready to start again at a moment's notice. She moved to her bag on the other side of the tent. It had been organized at one time, but during all their narrow escapes and tossing it around as they ran, it was quite _dis_ organized now. A couple minutes' search yielded the dittany she as looking for.

Crossing the tent to Harry's side, she uncapped the jar.

Harry's eyes shot open, glowing with an unholy light, and he growled, "Don't touch me, you Mudblood bitch."

Heart racing, she yanked her arm free and scrambled backwards. Though she intellectually knew Harry was not himself, those words from his mouth sounded like an awful betrayal.

He glared at her, eyes still glowing with an odd blue light. She didn't dare come nearer. She didn't' know if he was possessed or still locked into some nightmare. Cautious, she sat on her sleeping bag, recapped the dittany, drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

He needed to have that bite treated, but she wasn't going to go near Harry while his eyes blazed like that. She knew what he was capable of normally, but had no frame of reference for him now.

"Afraid, Mudblood?" he hissed. She flinched. "Do you really think you can win?"

She didn't reply. If Voldemort was possessing Harry, then the best recourse would be to keep Harry restrained. The tent was nondescript and wouldn't give away their location so long as Hermione kept her wits about her.

But if Voldemort wasn't possessing Harry, what was going on?

Before she could ponder it further, Harry's eyes rolled back in his head. His body bowed upward then collapsed atop the blankets once again.

She didn't move until several minutes passed without Harry stirring. Only then did she crawl across the floor to his side.

"Harry?" she whispered. She wasn't expecting a response, so she wasn't surprised when he didn't answer. Tamping down her fear, she leaned forward and pried open one eyelid.

Nothing glowing, only piercing green eyes.

She decided not to take any other chances. Moving back, she grabbed her wand and used it to levitate him into the bottom bunk. She cast a mild sticking charm to hold him in the bunk. It wasn't enough to fully restrain him, but enough that the struggle to break the charm would alert her he was awake.

Now that he was restrained, she felt it safe to attempt to put the dittany on his arm again. There was no resistance this time though she noticed he was very cold. After a thin coat of dittany to his forearm, she applied a thin coat to his scar to stop the bleeding.

He began murmuring again when she turned to fetch a shirt for him. Dressing him in a t-shirt reminded her of dressing a doll, though this one was life-size. She lay him back down and pulled the blankets up to his shoulders. He quieted once again.

Yawning, she backed away from the bed until she fetched up against the wall of the tent. Though she knew she should stay awake, stay alert, sleep was pulling her under. After a token protest, she succumbed.

She woke near dawn to Harry's shouting.

"No... no... no... "

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she crossed the tent. A short Aguamenti dampened the sponge. Harry had been sweating sometime during the night. She wiped his face and forehead.

"No... " he called, more distressed than before.

She wanted to shake him, but didn't dare after the possession incident. Instead, she cleared her throat and said, "Harry, it's all right, you're all right."

"No... I dropped it... I dropped it... "

She didn't know what he was talking about, but he sounded more alert than he had all night. She shook his shoulder gently. "Harry, it's okay, wake up, wake up!"

His eyes opened slowly. He seemed surprised to find himself inside the tent.

"Harry," she whispered. "Do you feel all -- all right?"

"Yes," he answered, sitting up slowly, pushing back the blankets. He was soaked in sweat. He looked awful, but she didn't call him on the lie.

"We got away," he said flatly.

His tone made her nervous, like he was surprised they'd escaped, like he expected to have been caught. She was surprised they'd managed to escape, but had thought their disguises would hold up.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I had to use a Hover Charm to get you into your bunk, I couldn't lift you. You've been... Well, you haven't been quite... " She trailed off, uncertain of how she could tell him he'd been out of his mind for most of the night. At last, she said with understatement, "You've been ill. Quite ill."

"How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."

He blinked at that. "And I've been... what, unconscious?"

"Not exactly," Hermione said, shifting uncomfortably. She couldn't tell him he'd been possessed, that Voldemort had somehow found them, that Voldemort had burrowed into his head once again, that he'd cursed at her, that he'd called her a Mudblood.

When she finally continued, she merely said, "You've been shouting and moaning and... things."

She vowed she would never tell him the rest. It was her secret.


End file.
